I admit with great indignity that I had been something of a sleeper cell in the world of computer hardware for the past few years. There was a time, quite recently, when I was very much “up” on things. I was the neighborhood go-to-guy for advice on what to buy and where to buy it from. But by the time 2008 rolled by, months ago, not so much. Given, it’s a bit of a relief not to be the pro bono IT-public-defender I once was, but almost five years had passed since my last desktop purchase–and seven since my last notebook–and it felt like it was about time that I got myself some Cliff notes to cram for the final.

So how did I get here? My interest in computers has always been inextricably linked to my career as a graphic designer and all-around digital-content-creator. The single most important piece of business equipment I own is my desktop PC (if you can count the rig as a “single piece of equipment”). As software changes/evolves, so does my need for better hardware to match. For the whole of my career, I’ve managed to hold off on replacing my PC for four or five years at a time. Long stretches, sure; but my strategy has always been to build it well, plan an affordable upgrade path for when prices eventually drop, and squeeze every last ounce of utility out of the system. By creating a system that lasts for a while and upgrading at the halfway point through the cycle, it’s almost like having half of a new computer every two-and-a-half years.

I’ve been asked quite often, “why do you need all of that power?” The simple answer is that the faster my computer is, the more projects I can complete in a shorter period of time, making my business more productive and essentially helping the new hardware to pay for itself in short order. But there are a slew of more detailed reasons. For one, the software world seems to pump out major upgrades every year and a half or so. Each time they do so, they’re generally designing the software to take advantage of the latest hardware, which unfortunately leaves the laggards in the dust. Then there’s also the matter of the specific types of work that I do: my business handles all types of work from “standard” graphic design to 3D design to video to spherical panoramic photography. Especially with 3D, video, and high-dynamic-range panoramic photography, which all require intense periods of rendering before a project is complete, one instantly benefits from a hardware upgrade.

So I’d known for a while that my time to upgrade was coming. I’d built my previous system in early 2004, and at the time, it was an absolute beast: two 3.06GHz Xeon processors, two gigabytes of RAM, and a handful of hard disks, with two of the 250GB disks in a mirrored RAID array, to protect my valuable project data. For a variety of reasons, though, lately it had become incredibly difficult to work with; it was at the point where saving project files could last minutes, and I found that my creative workflow was often interrupted by the computer’s inability to keep up. Part of it was due to new software and larger files, but I’m convinced that part of it was due to the general slowdown that one experiences with a Windows-based PC over the long haul; no matter how much you defrag, scan for malware, and keep your hard drives clean, the eventual bloat and entanglement of the registry and other system files guarantees that at some point, you’ll have to reformat and start fresh. But when you’re running a business on a single system full-time, that’s no simple task. So for the last six months of the system’s life, I knew I had to move quickly to build a new machine in order to keep things afloat.

On the positive side, I had a working computer, and while it was severely demented in its old age, it provided me with the ability to build the new computer without too much pressure. In hindsight, this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s definitely better to build when your current system is still functioning, because something will go wrong with your build. It just will.

Getting back up to speed was an interesting process. I started paying attention to blogs, magazines, and general gossip, paying special attention to the “weekly deal” emails from online retailers that I’d previously deleted without reading. For once, I understood why “price alerts” were useful; buying a PC on a budget was like playing the stock market. I read up on Intel’s insane-o naming conventions on Wikipedia, which is a must, since everybody “in the know” refers to a processor by its generation’s original codename rather than its model number. I also found loads of information through message boards and user reviews on sites like NewEgg, which sometimes prove to be more helpful than manufacturer’s sites (as long as you take each tidbit with a grain of salt. A good rule of thumb is that if three or more customer reviewers make a claim about a particular piece of hardware, it’s likely to be on the truthful side). I also found that I could “cheat” a bit by spec-ing out potential computers using PC retailers’ websites—by figuring out what Apple’s Mac Pro and Lenovo’s workstations and Dell’s higher-end machines had in common, I was able to figure out a bit more about where the marketplace was at. But I’ll be damned if I’d wimp out and purchase a pre-built machine.

Over the course of a few months, I collected a spreadsheet worth of hardware ideas, along with current prices, shipping prices, tax, retailer and manufacturer web links, and compatibility notes. I added space for alternative choices, just in case something went out of stock or proved to be too expensive when the time came to put my money where my spreadsheet was. Finally I reached the maximum point of frustration with my previous computer, and I felt the green light in my brain flash onit was time to commit. The final list of parts was as follows:

*PLEASE do not purchase this part for this particular rig without reading in more detail. Turns out I purchased the wrong model, which is an integral part of my story here. Keep reading.
**Again, warning notes to follow.

The Skulltrail platform just seemed perfect for me as soon as I’d first heard about it: it’s a workstation oriented system with the soul of a gamer board. Perfect for high-performance without sacrificing features or usability. My previous mobo, the Asus PC-DL, was similar in spirit, in that it allowed for dual-Xeons but had the form factor and features of a more gamer-oriented platform. I liked the idea, but over time I felt like there was something lacking in the Asus board, not in small part due to the difficulty I had in getting technical support when I had problems. So while there was an Asus Skulltrail mainboard available, I chose to go with Intel on this round, hoping that I’d have less trouble in the long run if things went awry.

The processors were basically the best I could afford, and given that I was putting two of them into the system, an Extreme processor would have just crippled my budget. Plus, the savings helped me to afford some of the more splurge-y components you find later down the list, and since the board can handle far better processors than what I currently own, I can always switch them out in two and a half years.

On my previous system, I had dealt with Intel’s stock Xeon coolers for more than two years. The fans were loud, to say the least. In fact, if the case panels were closed and I started rendering 3D or video, the thing would spin up and blow air out the back to the point where it sounded like a jet engine. I’m not even kidding–it was impossible to even have a conversation in the same room as that thing while it was running at full processor capacity. And given that I keep my system on almost all the time, that became a big problem. Eventually I came to my senses and explored the world of aftermarket coolers, eventually stumbling upon the Thermalright SI-9XV. I bought two of them and installed some silent fans, and the system went from 747 to hummingbird with very little fuss. In hindsight, it’s still one of the most satisfying tweaks I’ve ever made to a computer. So when I was scoping out possible cooling options for the new machine, I went straight to Thermalright. Given that I had purchased two Xeon processors, I bought two HR-01X heatsinks and some silent fans to match. Little did I know what I had in store…

The RAM was a Newegg special, but I had limited choices due to the motherboard’s use of fully-buffered RAM. I chose to go with 4GB of DDR2 800 instead of slower clock speeds because, well, why not! And I’ve got four more gigabytes of headroom for that cheap future upgrade I keep talking about.

I’d always had my heart set on a workstation graphics card, since I do work with 3D occasionally, and I wanted to know what the fuss was all about. Having scoped out the cards used on several pre-built 3D workstations, I found that the FX1700 offered pretty excellent bang-for-buck and could also be one of those things I upgrade 2.5 years down the line.

For storage, I was already planning to move over most of my internal and external drives from my previous system, but I wanted the system disk to be something special. The 300GB 10K RPM VelociRaptor is something special. And, for the sake of never feeling too full, I threw in a 1TB drive too. (I’ve still yet to put any data on it.)

Power supplies were also limited, from what I knew; apparently the Skulltrail platform uses SSI motherboards only. The Cooler Master was expensive, but seemed like it would get the job done and then some. I’ve also tended to like their products in the past.

Optical drives weren’t a huge factor for me in this build; Newegg had a special on the LG Blu-Ray burner/HD-DVD drive, and I figured, what the heck. At the sub-$300 price-point, I thought it’d be just nifty to be able to back-up my project files to Blu-Ray instead of 8.5GB DVDs. Now that many of my photo and video projects span the tens-of-gigabytes, Blu-Ray is seeming like a must for data archiving.

The case was something I really pored over—my previous system was built in an early-model Cooler Master Wave Master enclosure. It was a mid-tower, and although it was brilliant to work with at first, I quickly filled it up and got to the point where the computer’s innards were trying to break loose. Airflow became a huge problem, and for the last two years of the computer’s life, both of its side panels were removed altogether. I even needed a desk fan blowing air on the open-faced computer while rendering video or 3D just to keep the heat from building up. Learning from my mistakes, I wanted to have a very large case this time around, but I did not want to sacrifice looks, silence, or functionality. The Lian Li PC-V2100BPlus II is just what the doctor ordered, and I could not be happier.

Last but not least I decided to bite the bullet and go with Windows Vista. Like most folks out there my perception of the OS was rather low, but I really didn’t know much about it. It wasn’t like I had any reason to mistrust it, besides the whole multi-decade history that Microsoft has of making broken, inferior, and satanically evil products. Yeah, only that. And to spice up my little trip to Hell, I decided to go with the 64-bit version. Sounds like fun, you say? We’ll cross the river Styx momentarily.

When I finally decided that my credit card needed a torture test, I ordered a great deal of the system from NewEgg. Some of the parts were only available on other sites, or were considerably cheaper elsewhere, though. I was able to get a pretty hefty discount on the Skulltrail motherboard by finding a retailer who was selling it used; it was presumably a review unit that had been barely touched–so far it hasn’t had any problems at all and I’m glad I saved the hundred bucks. The coolers and fans were also specialty items, so those came separately. All told, it took about two weeks for everything to arrive, and I was raring to get down to business.

Part II: The Build (queue The Secret of Monkey Island theme)

After unboxing everything and making sure nothing was amiss, I rounded up my lucky set of screwdrivers and prayed to the gods of DIY PC-building. The Lian Li case, by the way, is tremendous and very heavy, even when empty. I built the system on my kitchen table, but it was a two-person operation to get it up there and down again. Intel included a wonderful little paper template with holes punched in it to help the installer figure out where the motherboard standoffs were to be located. That saved a lot of trouble. The only thing I don’t like about the Lian Li case, however, is its lack of a slide-out motherboard tray; even though it’s quite roomy in there, I always liked the slide-out feature of my old Wave Master.

Once I’d got the motherboard screwed into place, I thought it’d be a good idea to start figuring out how I was to attach the cooling apparatus. I took out all of the parts from one of the Thermalright boxes and found that there was basically an “X” mechanism which straddled the cooling block to clamp it down. But I could not for the life of me figure out why the X seemed to be too short in one direction. The holes on the motherboard around each CPU were arranged like the corners of a square, whereas the “X” clamp described something more like a rectangle. This was bad. Luckily, I had my old system still operational, and I started Googling. Only then did I find out that I’d made a crucial mistake: the Skulltrail motherboard uses Socket 775 coolers, despite supporting Socket 771 Xeon processors. That means that you cannot even use the Xeon stock heatsinks with the Skulltrail motherboard—it literally requires aftermarket cooling. Somehow this information had alluded me; despite how important it is, there were no gigantic warning signs on the Intel website or on NewEgg’s product page or on the retailer’s page from which I purchased it. Nowhere did it say “Hey buddy, make sure you use the wrong cooler for the Xeon processors.” I was not happy.

So, great. I’d barely put two components into the case and already I ran into a huge problem. It was too late in the day to start placing calls. I’d already been on the phone with Intel customer support the previous day when I discovered that the two “matched” Xeon processors I had purchased had entirely different boxes. In fact, one retail package said “Intel Quad Core Xeon Processor” while the other said “Intel Dual Core Xeon Processor.” I’m talking about the actual retail boxes–it’s not like they just used the wrong sticker or something. You could imagine how that spiked my blood pressure. Strangely, though, the barcodes on the boxes were quite similar and both reflected the same type of processor that I had ordered. After speaking with the rather helpful Intel support lady, we determined that while the wrong packaging was used, the right processor was inside. I was able to confirm this before I started the build, so that was one crisis averted. Weird, though.

So I couldn’t call them again being that it was late, and I had to sleep on it. I sent some emails out to Thermalright and to the retailer I purchased the heatsinks from to see if there was something that I could do to avoid having to buy new heatsinks. The HR-01X that I had seemed very similar to the 775-compatible HR-01, and I needed to know if I could merely replace the “X” thing with the proper mounting mechanism. Luckily I heard back from the retailer the next day, and Thermalright shortly thereafter. We determined that there were a few things I’d need: two “bolt thru kits,” and a pack of “accessories” that I could only get from Thermalright directly. So I ordered everything, which cost less than one of the heatsinks, and waited patiently for it all to arrive. It took almost two weeks, but when it arrived it was like Santa Claus had showered me in retention modules.

Problem was, despite all of the plastic baggies filled with shiny metal bits, there were absolutely no clear instructions included with either the “accessories” or the “bolt thru kits.” I had thought there would merely be a different “X,” but that was not the case. Without getting into the details, my very helpful and patient girlfriend helped me to piece together the existing parts we had at our disposal, and before too long we’d come up with what seemed like the right configuration. It wasn’t a new “X,” but rather a strange “H” shape. And it was a huge pain to screw it down, but it worked quite well. I was happy to put that all behind me. So, word to the wise: if you’re buying a Skulltrail system, think ahead. And buy the right heatsink the first time around.

I encountered another cooling problem, however. Due to the placement of small heatsinks on the motherboard’s chipset, it was only possible to mount the HR-01 heatsinks in one direction. The two 120mm fans that I purchased added quite a bit of volume to the cooling apparatus, and the thin wire retention mechanisms they used were incredibly difficult to work with. At first I thought I’d be doomed to passive cooling, and so I installed the heatsinks without the fans on them. Later, I revisited the fan issue and found that there would be no way to mount the fans onto the heatsinks in the Lian-Li case—it simply wasn’t possible to fit the wire retention clips in the 1mm space between the heatsink and the case’s interior wall. Again, I enlisted the help of my brilliant girlfriend. While she hadn’t ever built a PC before, she was quite well-versed in the art of jewelry making. Using pliers and some ligature wire normally used for making earrings and the like, she was able to tie the fans to the heatsinks without having to use the retention clips. It’s certainly unconventional, but it works!

The rest of the build went well for the most part, although when I hooked up the power supply to the motherboard, I found out that the power supply I purchased did not have two “2×4” 12V connectors, only one. The Skulltrail motherboard needs one of these 8-pin connectors for each installed processor, and since I had two quad-cores in the system, it seemed like a must. Again, I panicked, but finally after some intense search-engining I found that A) it was possible to run the system in the short term without the extra connector, and B) it was possible to buy a converter that would turn two 4-pin Molex connectors into one 2×4 8-pin connector. I ordered the part and continued my build, keeping my fingers crossed that the darn thing would boot.

With all of the parts properly installed, I hooked the bare minimum of cables up to to the new PC and hoped for the best. At first I was pretty scared, because the only thing on screen was a white blinking cursor for quite a while. Eventually though it started to POST and everything seemed OK. I guess the Skulltrail boot-up sequence is just a bit on the minimalist side, because it doesn’t really display anything but a black screen and a blinking cursor for a few seconds as it’s first starting up. I got into the BIOS and configured everything I could think of. I only had the VelociRaptor and the 1TB drive installed at first, and I therefore left the SATA mode on IDE rather than AHCI or RAID. (Big mistake.) But, I got the Vista disc to boot in the LG Blu-Ray/DVD drive and Windows started to install soon after that.

While we’re here, here’s my two cents about Vista: I actually like it. I thought it was going to be the biggest pain, but to be honest, I think Microsoft has really done some great things. It’s obviously not perfect, and let’s be frank here, I’m judging this based on having seen what sins they’ve committed in the past. (Anybody remember Windows Me?) But still, I think it’s the best OS they’ve done yet. Sure, it has its quirks, but far less than I had thought, and I’m dealing with the 64-bit version, which supposedly has no device drivers available. I might just be lucky, but I ran into almost no problems with driver support, even on some of my very old peripherals. My ancient scanner wasn’t directly supported, but I was able to find a really cool little program called VueScan which contained 64-bit drivers for all sorts of obsolete hardware. Solved the scanner problem real quick. That said, there have been some rough spots, but overall nothing has been bad enough for me to have regretted making the move to Vista 64. And it runs quick on this new box.

{ad}So when I thought I was on good enough footing with the new system, I decided to move my data drives from my old system and set them up on the new box, including the 2x250GB RAID array I had mentioned earlier. At first, I kept my old system hooked up to the network and I accessed my data drives using mapped network assignments, which made transitioning a lot easier. When I moved the drives over, I planned to keep the same drive letters that I had assigned to them while they were network-mapped, and that proved to be a good little strategy. What I didn’t know, however, was that I’d need to re-enable RAID in the BIOS, and that would subsequently cause Windows to stop booting.

Again, I was back to the ol’ Google drawing board, looking for solutions. Turns out that one has to install Windows after enabling RAID in order to avoid problems. Oops. Windows can’t access a boot device for which it does not have proper drivers, and my boot drive was set up on an IDE configuration. When I switched to RAID in BIOS, Windows basically couldn’t find its files. But after much research I found a helpful message board with a workaround: all I had to do was to take out the system drive (the WD VelociRaptor) and install it on an eSATA port, externally. Since it would therefore be on another controller, for which the drivers were already installed, Windows would have no problem adjusting. Then, I could enable RAID in BIOS, reboot, and have Windows detect the change and install drivers. Then, I could switch the drive back to the internal SATA slot, along with the new RAID disks, and I’d be golden. Turns out it worked, and it worked smoothly. Thanks, nameless, faceless message boardies.

Epilogue

So that about brings us up to speed, and as I write this article from my new and wonderful system, I’m pretty happy that everything turned out as it did. It certainly wasn’t easy, but I learned a lot, and I wanted to put this article out there so that others won’t make the same mistakes that I made. The biggest question that’s still been in my mind after all this is whether it’s better to build or to buy. In years past, I would have been staunch in saying “build.” But more recently, I’m not as sure; this process took months of planning, lots of stress, and the years of experience I have from doing this to myself over and over again. I wonder if I’m nuts, and if I should just join the folks in line at Costco who buy whatever is cheap and easy. Or maybe not even not to that extreme; I could always buy a pretty darn good system online with similar specs and all that, without the headache of a build. Heck, I could buy a Mac Pro with very similar specs to what I just built! But I don’t want that. (And I don’t have the money!)

So here’s the line in the sand: if you’ve read this whole article and felt a kinship with my struggle, said “d’oh” when I screwed up, and felt the pride and joy of success by the end, then building your own system can be a project like no other. I’m sure it’s the same sense of satisfaction that hot-rodders get when they cobble together their own little street racer, rather than buying something safe with airbags. But if you don’t need the aggravation, and you have tons of spare cash, then by all means, buy your computer from a company that knows what they’re doing. You might not get exactly what you’d like, and it might cost you an arm and a leg to get the same high-end specs as you could get cheaper on your own, but you’ll save time and sweat. If you have a keen sense of adventure and a strange attraction to mental anguish, though, you might want to start working on your spreadsheet.

In an upcoming article, I’ll be running some benchmarks on my old machine and my new machine to see just how much better the new system is. Stay tuned.

Reader Comments

SalCan

Awesome job! I can't wait to read about how it performs! That's what I call an epic build…

What was the total cost? About $2500?

joshkorwin

Actually it came to just over $3900. But it could have been so much lower, and I'm kicking myself for it—some of the mistakes that I made required that I purchase extra parts and spend more on shipping than I normally would. Several hundred dollars of the total are probably due to tax (both Newegg and I are in California) and shipping. Readers in other states can probably copy my configuration for much less.

In the long run, though, I think the idea that I was able to build a pretty darn powerful machine for less than $4000 still qualifies as a Workstation-on-a-Budget. In fact, I just visited Apple's site and spec-ed out a "comparably" equipped Mac Pro (not all the options match up, exactly, but it's as close as I could get)—you'd have to spend $5299 with them before tax to approximate the same level of hardware.

PloniAlmoni

Actually, I bet one could put togeather a Mac Pro for around that price. Just don’t buy hard drives and RAM from Apple. Get the minimum of those two items, then buy the Xeon RAM and standard hard drives from elsewhere. You’ll wind up with comparable prices from your own build, though maybe not as much fun! (Unless you want to run OS X legally… Which considering what’s coming up in Snow Leopard in the way of optimizing ordinary apps for a many-core system you might well want to do.)

jtmuzix

I have a mac pro 8 core 2 x quad core 3.2 ghz, 10 gigs, 2 x 500 gig SATA drives, Nvidia 8800 GT and it costed ~$5000. Of course I got a student discount which saved me $400. I also purchased the ram and drives online and avoided the high Apple price tag. I used to build my own systems and probably will again, however I will say that Apple is one complete computer OEM manufactuer who builds a very good ‘PC’ workstation and the up n up is that I can run OSX.

hakime

“In fact, I just visited Apple’s site and spec-ed out a “comparably” equipped Mac Pro (not all the options match up, exactly, but it’s as close as I could get)â€”you’d have to spend $5299 with them before tax to approximate the same level of hardware.”

Wait, this is totally wrong or maybe even a big lie…. Go to check it again….

Costs $3949 (even cheaper with education discount), but i get faster processors (by the way what is the speed of your front side bus?), a bigger second hard drive and a faster graphical card. The FX 1700 has a 128 bits bus and develops 12.8 GB/sec of graphic memory bandwidth, the GeForce 8800 GT has a 256 bits bus and develops 57.6 GB/sec of graphic memory bandwidth. That’s 4.5 times faster….. but hey you got a blue ray drive!!

Plus look at the inside of your machine, its a total mess, this is porrly designed. What i get with the Mac pro is an engineered machine, 20+ sensors to monitor the machine, a reliable motherboard, a easy access to memory and to the drives, a better design, i mean look here

Is $3899 before tax (shipping is free). So that's quite close to Josh's machine, but you don't get the Raptor disk, Blu-ray, or the Quadro FX. Yes, do you get Apple's nicely done interior and one warranty, but the Pro is not cheaper from what I can tell. Tax alone is going to be hundreds and then you need a Vistal Ultimate license.

Also, regarding the video, the Quadro FX is "certified on all industry-leading CAD, DCC, and visualization applications" (say Nvidia) and it's a workstation graphics card so it makes sense why it was chosen over something else.

Finally, I think a point can be made for upgradeability. In two or three years when you want to replace your video card and processors it's probably going to be easier on something you built yourself. Whether is just because you know it better or better, because everything inside is not custom tailored for the other parts, or just because you don't have to worry about any proprietary parts.

Not to take sides or anything… I think it often makes sense to explore buying something from a manufacturer. It would certainly have saved some time!

hakime

“Is $3899 before tax (shipping is free). So that’s quite close to Josh’s machine, but you don’t get the Raptor disk, Blu-ray, or the Quadro FX. Yes, do you get Apple’s nicely done interior and one warranty, but the Pro is not cheaper from what I can tell. Tax alone is going to be hundreds and then you need a Vistal Ultimate license.”

That what i meant, the Mac Pro’s price is close to Josh’s machine. But he says that a similarly configured Mac pro costs $5299 (see his comment above), which is wrong as you could check it by yourself. And also my main point was why spend the same amount of money for something which has less good quality and reliability.

Note also that i don’t get the Raptor drive but i get a bigger second drive, i don’t get a blue ray but i get faster processors for $3949 which is inline with what he got as he said that the price was over $3900. So i still get a faster machine (2.8 vs 2.5 ghz)……

“Also, regarding the video, the Quadro FX is “certified on all industry-leading CAD, DCC, and visualization applications” (say Nvidia) and it’s a workstation graphics card so it makes sense why it was chosen over something else.”

This is Nvidia marketing. Ok the Quadro FX 1700 cards have some obscure CAD related features in their drivers but it can’t compensate the difference in speed with the GeoForce 8800 GT. The GeoForce 8800 GT is a way better deal and nothing prevents it to be a good card for CAD, DCC, and visualization applications. I use it for scientific visualization, it is very good.

The Quadro FX cards are interesting only when you go for the higher models which are surely very powerful but also very expensive. But believe me, there is no real reason to buy a Quadro FX 1700 over a GeoForce 8800 GT. If you talk about the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, then ok this card is a monster….

“Finally, I think a point can be made for upgradeability. In two or three years when you want to replace your video card and processors it’s probably going to be easier on something you built yourself. Whether is just because you know it better or better, because everything inside is not custom tailored for the other parts, or just because you don’t have to worry about any proprietary parts.”

Why replacing a video card is a problem. I don’t see why. All card supporting your PCI bus will work as long as you also have the drivers, there is nothing custom tailored that would prevent to update the card, nothing. What are those proprietary parts that you refer to? A video card is independent of the motherboard anyway…

For a processor, well maybe you could think of changing a processor, but it makes little sense for a workstation. You buy a workstation that you will use for a long time because they are powerful, (i have a 6 years old Powermac Dual G4 station still in use), the next time you will think to change a processor, it won’t be compatible with your motherboard anyway and having a computer that you’ve built yourself won’t help you.

“Not to take sides or anything… I think it often makes sense to explore buying something from a manufacturer. It would certainly have saved some time!”

Right, i do think that it makes a little sense to custom build a workstation. Buying of from a manufacturer costs the same but with higher quality and reliability (well it also depends on the manufacturer too) that it is required for a workstation. Custom building a computer is fun for gaming not for real work.

One warranty is a big deal for professionals, having no warranty can be a bug pain particularly on custom built hardware not tested and not well engineered.

Also remember that with a Mac Pro you get as i said a very nice peace of engineering (that you also don’t get from Dell or HP by the way), it looks nice inside yes but it also provides a complex network of sensors that monitor the machine for reliability and performance, again two things important in workstations.

joshkorwin

Wow, looks like I inadvertently started a Mac fanboy flamewar. Not intended. In any case, when I said "comparably" equipped, I kept it in quotes on purpose: for the components that were unavailable in the Apple when compared with my system, I tried to find other perks that would be of similar use. For example I added the RAID controller, since my system uses RAID. And the clock speeds of the Mac Pro were like .3 GHz faster. And then there are the differences between OS X and Windows Vista—in a lot of ways it's apples to oranges (no pun intended). Sal's right; there's probably a better comparison to be made between my system and another PC workstation, like a Lenovo for example. Either way, I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that it's universally cheaper to buy high-end, specialty equipment from a provider rather than building from scratch. Economies of scale work when there's scale. But when needs are more specialized (cough, 8 cores, cough), it's usually cheaper if you can squeeze by on your own.

It's probably safe to say that a significant proportion of "content creators" are using Apple systems to do what they do, and I'm often asked why I do not use a Mac, especially given that I'm in the graphic design field. I want to note for the record that it's not a heated point of contention for me; I've always been on PCs, and I simply find that a lot of the things I need to accomplish are very easy for me to do on a PC. In the long run I think it saves me time; in the end I think it's not necessarily always about the speed or stunning good looks of one's computer, but the efficiency of one's overall workflow. And more often than not, level of comfort with software and interface are going to be a MUCH bigger factor on the amount of time that I save while working than say, bus speeds. As I had alluded to in the article, I had lived with my previous dual Xeon machine for five years, and it was terrific for 90% of that. Even when I transitioned over to the new, much faster box, I was extremely hesitant—even the exponentially faster equipment wouldn't have been able to make up for the "setup curve" (all the time it took to get the software installed and to get everything tweaked and customized to the point where I was comfortable working on it).

I think it's easy to underestimate the human role in computing, and I wanted to highlight that to some degree in this article. It's all well and good to have the fastest, greatest hardware, sure. But it's always a matter of what you're doing with it, and how it suits you, and in that sense there are no absolutes. For some, Apples offer absolutely everything they need and more, and that's why Apple has their market share. But the user is the one who makes the biggest productivity difference in the long run.*

*Except when rendering video or 3D. I cannot tell you how many times I've had to wait overnight for a project to be complete, while not being able to use the system in the interim due to its extreme CPU/RAM usage.

@hakime:

Come on, why you gotta insult my interior decorating? :) Seriously, you should see my previous computer. It was a warzone compared to this one. I'm actually quite proud that it look as clean as it does! But yeah, one of course gets all of the nifty, well-engineered bells and whistles when you buy from the pros; that's precisely what you're paying for. Also, let me point out that I intentionally made quite a big point in the article about what a masochistic process it is to build one's own machine—not only do you end up with the interior beauty of a rotting whale, but the system as a whole is unwarrantied and unsupported. It's a risky venture, and I acknowledge that in full. A big part of my struggle when planning this generation of my main workstation was to figure out whether I should build or buy. It was an epic decision for me, but as usual I stuck to my old habits and decided to build again. I'm totally glad I did, but it's not for everybody. And it's certainly not just an economic decision—it has to be for the love of doing it yourself, making your own mistakes, and yes, being criticized for your system's inferiority to the immaculate drops of pure enlightenment oozing from Cupertino.

LCPorsay

I also own a MacPro and I have to say that it is much cheaper and faster to buy from Apple, then If you choose to you can install whatever OS you would like. The trick is to just buy the “standard” (2 Quad @ 2.8 GHz) and get the nVidia 8800GT (the graphics card is the only thing you would have a hard time finding elsewhere) This puts you to $2,949.00 as of Sep 11 2008 or 2.618,99 â‚¬ in France… Then go buy 4Go of RAM about 150â‚¬ (200$) and a couple of Hard drives (1To for about 150â‚¬ in Europe). The extra RAM and Disks are just peanuts compared to the rest and adding them takes 10 minutes !!
I think this is interesting work but you could have saved yourself some trouble @ least it shows what is available out there. As for the Windows 64-bit, How is that working for you? Any problems with software (you mention no major problem w/ drivers). And just for info there is a nice article on 64-bit architectures and RAM usage here http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/03/road_to_mac_os_x_snow_leopard_64_bits_santa_rosa_and_the_great_pc_swindle.html

LCPorsay

1 think I forgot, the RAID controller that is available @ Apple is for Hardware RAID NOT software RAID which is still available without the controller as you would in other OSs (I actually don’t see a hardware RAID controller in your configuration either… did I miss it?) – And I hope I don’t sound like an Apple “fanboy” going that way just help me spend additional time on other problems.

joshkorwin

@LCPorsay:

Vista x64 so far is actually running rather swell. I'm going to be doing some follow-up articles regarding software, so stay tuned, but the overall situation is MUCH better than I thought it'd be. I'm finding that just about everything either runs fine in its native 32-bit on 64-bit Vista, or in some cases, the developers have created new-and-improved 64-bit versions of their software that run natively. One thing I find semi-annoying is the two "Program Files" folders (one for 64-bit and one for 32-bit called "Program files (x86)"), but I understand the purpose that it serves. There are a few odd things that I want to point out, but for legal reasons you're going to have to wait until my next article. Sorry! :)

As for RAID, I do have hardware RAID available on the Skulltrail D5400XS:

I added a RAID 1 array to the rig using small hard drives from my previous machine, but it wasn't mentioned in the article since it wasn't really part of the "original" build and really only affects storage rather than performance. Once the system was completely self-sufficient, I finally moved over the hard disks from my old computer which contained all of my client project files. The extra RAID controller at Apple was just that it would allow the Mac Pro to also have <i>hardware </i>RAID capabilities like the Skulltrail system does, for whatever purposes it might be used. (In fact, in practice, I've found that the two different SATA controllers <i>each </i>have hardware RAID support; one works on the internal SATA drives and the other applies to the eSATA ports.)

And @Apple users/lovers/what-have-you in general: please take my sarcasm with a grain of salt, as I know you're not all "fanboys." :)

LCPorsay

From my understanding, the hardware RAID controller that you can get @ Apple is way over what you get fro the motherboard chip in you system (i.e. w/ non-volatile write cache -w/72hours battery + adds the support for SAS drives) If you are using a RAID 1 array, you don’t need the card on the MacPro. + you get to add more internal drives + RAM if I am not mistaken… Thanks for the article though

Sounds like pure fun to me Josh. I have been itching for a convergence to build a new system myself. I had always imagined that i7 would be here by now. Given the kind of money you spent I believe I would have gone another way. I like the idea of the Veloraptor–that's a must, and the blueray. I think I would have gone with the i7 though and a dual ATI video card system. I would have paid special attention to high overclockability, especially in the CPU. I would use a single quad core cpu, probably the fastest nonExtreme i7. I would water cool everything but the drives–and possibly use a water chiller from an aquarium that would kick in at high loads, to boot. This can be a very quiet computer as it needs no fans, and I think it will be as fast as yours. I would have so much money left ove that I would probably splurg on things like very fast RAM that can handle overclocks with tight settings. Paying sales tax was just lazy, but I applaud your civic spirit. Something that is important to me is that I will be using many things from my old system and still be left with a very fuctional 2nd computer

The consenses reached on Toms is that if you know what your doing, building your own will cost you one third less than a MAC of similiar capabilities. The only thing that MAC really has going for it is perception and their OS. And it seems that they have an on going problem with people who have hacked their latest OS and made it installable on some PCs in one click. And I think I heard something about Apple suing a company that made computers that would boot under legally owned copies of OSX.

Personally I know that though I am more or less in the same boat as you, I can build a machine that is exactly what I want, or closer than MAC can get to it, for much less than it would cost me to buy off the shelf.

Most people still in this day and age do not overclock their CPU. I have been doing this since the days when you had to use traces on the cpu–now all you do is make a few mouse clicks and with the right components you get a 30% boost in processor speed. My present computers FSB is 800, but I run it at 1140 on some apps and games–it really makes a huge difference. And I have been doing it four five years on this old PentiumIV with no down side. To talk about preformance computing on a budget and not considering overclocking, really doesn't make much sense to me. But then I have never burned up a CPU. I have heard that the Pentium i7 will be an unlocked piece. If this is true, it should prove to be highly overclockable and records will fall. But more importantly it will allow people with a little skill to reap a rich reward in megahertz, possibly gigahertz of free speed increase. Speed is Power.

m3kt3k

What im noticing about the mac fanboys is the caveats. Its cheaper if you buy this this and this not from apple. While your specs are close sowhat. He admits that he made a mistake when ordering parts. I would build myown over buying anyones workstation. And never would buy a mac. As for OSX. ohh yea. Joy.. I fail to see its advantages. As for cable managment. To each there own. My systems are fully wrapped and look cleaner then any mac. This is just more fanboydom about the AWSOMENES of Mac. When the reality is all you get from mac is a higher price tag and a pretty logo. Dont pull the “Well you buy this this this and this” and then claim its the same price. As for the Video card issue. Pro Cad stations/Medical imaging etc all use very highend cards. They need to be stable and Ultra precise. I love my 8800GT’s in SLI but I would not trust them if it involved scanning my brain for cancer. Those that disagree with me really need to look at the highend market. And not toss BS about how hast they are. When a single errant pixel can be a glitch or a tumor its reallllly important.

Ted on the tundra

Very interesting article. It is true that it is very difficult to comare Xeon cpu’s in non-server operations.
For those contemplating a workstation, several 41 gb/sec bandwidth graphics cards (firegl v7200 ) are now available from France on E-Bay for $150. Mine just arrived, and it’s new from HP. (even came with the rack pull-out handle) They are not Crossfire capable but they can push a lot of data!
4 gb OCZ DDR2 800mhz is a steal @ $40 from Tiger Direct Canada. My own upcoming build will have 12 GB of this ram for a cost of $120 Canadian. Which, at present, is about $97 USD.
The idea of running quad-core cpu’s is seductive, however, very few of us actually run software which can make use of it!
Our shop runs MAYA 2008 which is optimized for multi-core processing and needs every byte and mhz just for rendering.
One of the benefits of living here in the frozen North is that our Cpu’s never overheat.

I had trouble with faulty power supplies from the Antec case, which has delayed the build quite a bit. They are arriving next week so will let you know how everything goes.
Quick question: Can I run the system with the HR-01X’s without 120mm fans attached to them? Will this make the cpus run too hot?
I bought silent 120mm fans for attaching, but the layout of my motherboard means I cannot attach them because the graphics card is in the way.
The case has good cooling though, even though it meant me removing the 200mm side fan and attaching it outside the case to accomodate the huge HR-01X’s. There’s also 2 140mm fans right next to the heatsinks which suck hot air out the case.

Josh

Amazing how fast prices come down. I just bought a similar machine (2 Xeon E5420’s, 1GB NVidia card, 20GB RAM, 1TB drives, etc.) all from newegg, all on sale, for $1800. We’ll probably look at these machines as being ancient in 3 years too.